I Am He That Liveth

A man on a small rock island in the Aegean Sea, sent there because of what he preached, hears a voice behind him like a trumpet. He turns around to see who is speaking. And the next thing he knows, he is face down on the ground, as if he were dead. That is how the last book of the Bible begins, and it is the one part of it nobody argues about.

The isle that is called Patmos

He tells us who he is, and it is not a boast. "I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Revelation 1:9). Your brother. Your companion in tribulation. He does not open with his title. He opens with what he shares with the people he is writing to. They are suffering, and so is he. The church, from Irenaeus on, has read him as the same John who leaned on Jesus at the last supper, the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23).

Turned to see the voice

"I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet" (1:10). "And I turned to see the voice that spake with me" (1:12). Turned to see a voice. That is how the last book of the Bible begins its seeing. And what he sees is not, at first, the future. It is a Person.

Seven golden candlesticks, "and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters" (1:13-15). "And his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength" (1:16).

John knew the Scriptures, and he would have known where he had heard that description before. Daniel saw the Ancient of days on His throne, "whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool" (Daniel 7:9). That is God on the throne. And here the same white hair is on the head of one like the Son of man. John is not describing an angel. He is describing the Man he had walked beside for three years, with the features of the Ancient of days.

As dead

This is the man who had leaned on that chest at supper. He had eaten with Him, walked the roads with Him, stood at the foot of His cross. And he could not stand up in front of Him. Irenaeus, in the second century, read the moment exactly: John could not endure the sight, "and the Word reviving him, and reminding him that it was He upon whose bosom he had leaned at supper" (Against Heresies 4.20.11).

Fear not

And then the most gentle thing in the whole book. "And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not" (1:17). The right hand. The same hand that, a verse earlier, was holding seven stars. He puts the stars down, as it were, and puts that hand on a man lying in the dirt.

And John had felt this before. On the mountain of the transfiguration, when the voice came out of the cloud, "when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid" (Matthew 17:6-7). Decades later, on an island, the same touch. The same two words.

Then He tells John who is touching him. "I am the first and the last" (Revelation 1:17). John knew that sentence too. Isaiah had written it, and it belonged to one Speaker only: "Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God" (Isaiah 44:6). Beside me there is no God. And the hand on John’s shoulder says it about Himself.

The keys

I am he that liveth, and was dead. John had seen Him dead. He had watched the spear go in, and seen the blood and the water, and he wrote it down so that we might believe (John 19:34-35). He had seen the grave-clothes lying in an empty tomb. And here the One who was dead says, behold, I am alive for evermore. Not alive again for a while. For evermore. And He holds the keys. Death is a locked room, and He is the one with the key. He went in, and came out, and kept the key.

Only after that does John get his work. "Write the things which thou hast seen" (1:19). The candlesticks, He tells him, are the churches (1:20). Seven small congregations in Asia, some of them faithful, some of them lukewarm, some of them compromising, some of them about to suffer. And where is He standing? In the midst of them.

Where this lands

People come to the book of Revelation for the beasts and the numbers and the dates, and argue about them, and they are worth reading carefully; the site weighs them on Daniel and Revelation and When John Saw It. But the book does not start there. It starts with a man in exile, face down on a rock, and a hand on his shoulder, and a voice saying, fear not. Everything else in the book is seen by a man who had already been told that.

If you are on your own island tonight, sent there by something you did not choose, the order is the same. Before the future is shown, the Person is. He is standing in the midst of His churches, including the lukewarm ones. He has the keys. And the book He gave to John ends with Him still speaking: "Surely I come quickly." And John, who had fallen at His feet as dead, answers for all of us: "Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20).

Related: Daniel and Revelation, When John Saw It, Abide With Us, and The Resurrection Body. Scripture from the King James Version, linked to the Study Bible; the words of Christ are marked in purple. Irenaeus from the Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1.